Tech troubles have stymied some of the government’s coronavirus response efforts, frustrating thousands of out-of-work Americans and small business owners, but technology experts say it does not need to be that way.
The IRS and Small Business Administration’s online tools for accessing coronavirus relief have been especially problematic.
The IRS’ web portal for checking on stimulus payments showed an error message for various users for days, which a Los Angeles Times employee said users could bypass by typing their address in all caps. The IRS insisted Wednesday that writing in uppercase characters makes no difference.
“The address field in [the] Get My Payment application is not case sensitive,” said Bruce Friedland, IRS spokesman, in an email. “However, removing all punctuation may help people using the address line. The IRS made updates to Get My Payment over the weekend; we urge people who haven’t used the tool in recent days to try again.”
The Small Business Administration’s processing site for the Paycheck Protection Program, E-Tran, similarly has caused headaches for Americans attempting to use the program.
The SBA disputed to Fortune magazine that it had any outage in its services, and reportedly said its pacing mechanism for lenders thwarts any individual lender from submitting thousands of loans per hour into the system.
But many users complained about technical glitches during the first round of funding for the program as well as the new round that started this week.
Americans wondering why the federal government’s websites are causing so many headaches can find answers in the government’s inability to use expert knowledge, according to tech analysts.
Tony Mills, R Street Institute director of science policy, said the government could take steps to reverse the institutional vulnerabilities in its technical infrastructure.
“I think the broader institutional failing is an inability for expertise to penetrate into our governing institutions, and here I think about Congress,” Mr. Mills said. “Congress has inadequate expertise and it does not have the capability of absorbing expertise out there.”
Dan Lips, Lincoln Network director of cyber and national security policy, said new approaches to acquisition management and more tech expertise in government are needed to improve the government’s management of information technology projects.
“For decades, government watchdogs have warned about problems with [the] federal government’s cybersecurity and IT management,” Mr. Lips said in an email. “Our current challenges are no surprise.”
Daniel Takash, Niskanen Center regulatory policy fellow, said the IRS’ budget cuts in the past decade have contributed to the problems. Between fiscal 2010 and 2019, the IRS workforce was cut 20%, according to the National Taxpayer Advocate’s 2019 annual report to Congress.
“In general, the problem is an underinvestment in the bureaucracy and state capacity,” Mr. Takash said in an email. “Part of this is just due to negligence on the part of legislators who don’t want to take the time or spend the money required to update or maintain the infrastructure. The IRS specifically has had a rough decade after coming under close scrutiny by conservative lawmakers.”
Both Mr. Mills and Mr. Lips point to a deficit of technology expertise in Congress as affecting the policymakers’ ability to write laws that allow the federal government to work effectively. Mr. Mills pointed to a tendency among some lawmakers to write statutes as broadly as possible and other lawmakers’ reliance on outside groups for specific legislative language as evidence of Congress’ inability to convert expert knowledge into good government policy.
Such problems cannot be solved by simply throwing more money or personnel at the issue, Mr. Mills said, although he noted increased staffing in Congress may help solve some problems. Mr. Mills said the public sector’s struggle with talent retention and difficulty determining which federal entity has purview over a given matter are issues that need to be addressed to improve the government’s technical infrastructure.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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